With the exciting announcements from MacWorld over and done with and the show winding down, what has it left for us this time? Some analysts were impressed by the 8″ G4 consumer cube computer, and Apple shares are up a few percent today after dipping yesterday.

News of new iMac colors was exciting to Mac users, but was not that rosy for iMac copycat manufacturers who have large inventories of products and accessories in the old iMac colors. These manufacturers were not told about the color changes beforehand. Read more about that at CNet.

Finally, analysis of some of Steve Jobs' statements has been critical, especially his statement that “These are the first personal computers in history to come standard with dual processors …” [Editor's note: I added "to come standard" as this was the true quote. The rest of the item is unchanged.] This may come as a surprise to the many people out there running dual-processor systems already.

ROB'S OPINION
The market is behaving very oddly lately, with AMD shares down a good 5 points on higher than expected earnings. The down and up move of Apple probably had very little to do with any announcements at MacWorld and more to do with the entire tech market unstably jumping up and down over the past couple of days.

I have to say that I do like the idea of a tiny little 8″ computer in some ways. I wouldn't use it as my main machine, but there's something cool about it. As for the iMacs changing colors, perhaps Jobs was annoyed at all the copycat color products on the market. He certainly pissed off a lot of small companies by changing colors midstream. At PCExpo, I remember seeing large desks in all the old iMac colors. Those guys are going to have to move their inventory to people that already own iMacs now instead of to new buyers.

How about the dual processor comment? The marketing wizardry of Apple would surely insist that PCs with dual processors are not personal computers, but rather workstations or servers. Most of us Geeks know otherwise, especially with the large amount of dual Celeron boards out there and people running NT and Windows 2000.

He claimed that the 2 top-end G4 towers are the first PC's to come STANDARD with 2 processors. I dunno, are there STANDARD models of PC's that can claim the same? Probably, I dunno.

Jobs is a scheister, that's for certain. – by Gropo

Irresponsible Journalism (6:46pm EST Thu Jul 20 2000)As stated previously he said it was the first PC to come STANDARD with dual processors.

That is still a pretty dangerous claim, but leaving that one word out is another fine example of journalists trying to create news instead of reporting it. – by kyle

They sure are perrrty! (6:51pm EST Thu Jul 20 2000)If I had the money, I'd buy one of those cubes for my living room table, just for show and a conversation piece. Ultimately, I'd have to go back to my ugly Cybermax/Athlon system for all the reasons that have been debated over and over…

Cute Jobs, cute… – by Tim W.

Where's the good stuff? (8:14pm EST Thu Jul 20 2000)There are 700MHz PPC7400 (G4 chip) prototypes. There are PPC750CX (next-gen G3) processors. There are better graphics cards. I love Macs, but really now, could we see some REAL improvements? Yes, dual-processor systems are a very good thing, but why no 7400s based on the Nitro architecture? The Nitro architecture allows for clockspeeds of up to 700MHz. Oh well, at least the V'Ger (G4e) architecture allows for 1.1GHz, with 2 AltiVec vector processing units. Too bad we probably won't see it for another year. – by Xinzor The Merciless

Irresponsible? Not (9:03pm EST Thu Jul 20 2000)Well, I don't see how adding “standard” in there changes anything. There have been many PC models from manufacturers that ship with 2 processors standard. As well, the new 400MHz G4 PowerPC ships with a single processor, so how are two processors standard? – by Mr. Dabolina

Adden-dumb (10:23pm EST Thu Jul 20 2000)The BeBox back in the early 90's came with two processors STANDARD… – by Gropo

'bout damn time (12:59am EST Fri Jul 21 2000)I love the idea that someone out there has made dual processors a “standard”. Now maybe the rest of the industry will get off its collective a$$ and start mass producing systems that have dual processors and bring the price down.

The AMD K-6 would support dual processors (according to AMD), but no one ever produced a chipset for it. Could you imaging, A dual processor AMD K-6 500 for less than a single processor P-II? I'd have 3 of them sitting around the house, just because I could!

– by ArcherB

Dual CPU (7:15am EST Fri Jul 21 2000)AlienWare has been selling a dual cpu machine for ages. Its “customizeable” though but there is still a standard for it http://www.alienware.com/2000/products.html – by – alienware owner

As usual Apple is driving PC innovation forward (7:55am EST Fri Jul 21 2000)It's kinda sad that Apple don't enjoy better fortunes. A consumer product that people can use the internet and email from that people don't think twice about putting in their living rooms should be a winning idea but sadly PC's have the two key advantages going for them – compatibility and outright speed. Once games machines like the PSII and the X-Box start shipping the PC as a games and entertainment machine will begin to decline. Then high-end PC's will begin to become the domain of geeks and power-users. Then the PC market will have to produce a consumer PC much like the iMac or those cute cube Macs. – by Peter (UK)

Cubes (9:14am EST Fri Jul 21 2000)Steve Jobs brings out a new computer called the cube. Now where did I read that one before…? – by Peter Sealy

Raw Power Thats All Folks (11:20am EST Fri Jul 21 2000)It's simple one G4 CPU is awsome, two G4's isawsome X2, the processing power is what we need.There is not a another personal computer out there with that much horse power under the hood for the money. You P.C people can bitch mone and gripe all you want, but baby, APPLE is back.OS10 on the Duel G4's will kick butt.Yes we all know where we saw the “cube” before, remember “The NeXt Computer” ? Lets hope that this G4 cube does a lot better in the market.

Thank You And Have A Good Day……….. – by Big_Mike

To Big_Mike (12:59pm EST Fri Jul 21 2000)Apple is NOT back. I agree that the G4 does have some serious computing power,but until Macs are actually affordable by your average person, more people will have PC's than Macs, and vendors of PC systems, hardware, and software will enjoy a much larger share of the market. Also, for all the power-users out there who prefer to have control over their computer, they will never buy a Mac unless the operating system becomes designed for other than the computer-illiterate. Perhaps OS 10 is a step in the right direction. Those same power-users want a choice of hardware solutions and not one proprietary solution will again never buy a mac unless that changes.Who wants to pay at least 5000 dollars for a top of the line Mac when you can have a PC that is just as powerful for at around 3000 dollars? All you MacPhiles need to get real. Yes, your horse goes faster than a PC with the same number of mhz, but no one will buy your horse because it costs too damn much.Also remember OS 10 is based on a Unix kernel, and where did that originate from?? A PC. – by a power-user

To Power User (1:40pm EST Fri Jul 21 2000)That $3000.00 you commented about will indeedby a DUEL G4 450MHZ Box, with an outstanding I might add 17″ monitor. Read Apple's Lips.www.apple.com You said something about proprietary my G4 uses standard ATA66 hard drivesIDE cdrom… dvd… cdrw… ect.. ect.. USB… FIREWIRE…SDRAM PC100…WHAT!!!!! Proprietary????? It's nice to have an OS that is built just for your paticular system. IRQ problems HA!!! What is a IRQ? Mac's don't know. Lets talk VIRUS control, hum, 40,000 and counting fot the P.C. Why is that, maybe because cheap hardware in the hands of well, you get the picture. Not to many out there for the ol Macintosh. And about that UNIX history stuff, here is the deal:

UNIX was originally developed at Bell Laboratories as a private research project by a small group of people starting in 1969. This group had experience with a number of different operating systems research efforts in the 1970's. The goals of the group were to design an operating system to satisfy the following objectives:

Simple and elegant Written in a high level language rather than assembly language Allow re-use of code.

P.C's what P.C's, lets see IBM had a 8088 CPU in the 80's???? By the way that 8088 is still in that Pentium III or whatever Intel CPU you have.

Well see you in the funny papers.Again Have A Nice Day………. – by Big_mike

Big Deal (2:02pm EST Fri Jul 21 2000)So Apple announces some new products, it will still take till the next Macworld expo before we se any of it. – by at least 2 character

Big Mike sucks (4:18pm EST Fri Jul 21 2000)Who is cheap hardware in the hands of, Big_Mike? Is it poor people? Are you saying that people without enough money to buy a Mac are evil and are the only ones that create viruses? Maybe we should go and kill off the poor, so that Big)Mike can use his G4 without fear of viruses from poor PC users. – by Big D

So you're full of it, “Little” Mike (5:25pm EST Fri Jul 21 2000)I wonder why there are so many viruses circulating around PC's. Because there ain't too many folks outside of graphics and web designers using Macs. Macs are much more expensive then even a high end PC. You seem to be so taking with the dual processor set up. IF you knew anything about SMP, then you would know that having two processors of the same speed does NOT mean that the effective speed is double of one of the processors. Also the processsor instruction set of the PentiumIII is x86. 8088 is a old processor that hardly exists anymore. Get your terms straight before you come here talking trash, because that is all you are doing.I have a PC at home because I prefer an evironment that I can control. I work on G4's for my graphics work for my minor in graphic design. UNLIKE you, I can appreciate both computers. I prefer PC's, but I do appreciate the raw power of a top-of-the-line G4. – by – power_user

Does it work though? (7:58pm EST Fri Jul 21 2000)Well you maybe surpirsed to know this, but dual proccessers is shit unless you have programs that can utilize it. Just becuase the OS does doesn't mean that the programs can use it. Alot of programs simply don't support it, so you get almost no gain. It's just a waste of money right now. Remember, just becuase an OS can do it doesn't mean that a program can do it.

-Zipper – by Zipper

To Power User (11:22pm EST Fri Jul 21 2000)Yes you know your hardware!!!!! It took you long enough to find out what CPU you run…;-)Does this mean you have a Power PC chip?

Ye haw you have a mac and did not even know it!!!About the software, no crap the OS and software in the future will be muti CPU aware.It's time to move on here people!!!!

Oh P.S. I work on P.C's to support my Mac habit.

Later Dudes………..;-O – by Big_Mike

to big mike(12:54pm EST Tue Jul 25 2000)alright fool….perhaps you have hear of AMD. they make pc processors as well. do some research for god's sake. i would hate to have you work on my rig with your lack of knowledge

no one could pay me enough to have any kind of mac in my house, especially a powerPC. Those have got to be the worst mac i have ever dealt with.- by Neo